Unmanned surveillance air vehicles, glide munitions, winged missiles, and other types of air vehicles are sometimes configured to be carried internally or externally on a larger mother aircraft. Because the carried air vehicle itself is usually small and typically has a limited range, it is flown to a location near to where it is to perform its mission, as cargo on the mother aircraft, and then air launched to perform the mission. The carried air vehicle may later be recovered, or it may be considered expendable and destroyed at the completion of the mission.
The carried air vehicle has laterally extending wings, which make it awkward to store the carried air vehicle on the mother aircraft. To facilitate the internal or external storage and transport on the mother aircraft, the carried air vehicle may be provided with folding wings. The folding wings are in a folded storage position during carriage, and then are unfolded to a deployed flight position either shortly prior to launch or shortly after launch from the mother aircraft.
In most of these carried air vehicles, the wings have hinged control surfaces pivotably attached to the trailing edges. These control surfaces must be retained in a fixed position when the wing is in the folded storage position so that they do not flutter and do not become pivotably displaced to some unknown angle. After deployment, the control surfaces must be in a known, defined position ready to perform their function in aiding in the control of the air vehicle.
Accomplishing the positioning of the control surfaces with wing-mounted structure is not difficult in conventional circumstances. However, with increasing air vehicle speeds and smaller air vehicles, design considerations have mandated the use of thinner wings, in some cases about 3 inches or less thick. The conventional locks, structures, and drives required for the control surfaces cannot be sufficiently miniaturized to be accommodated within these very thin wings.
Consequently, there is a need for an approach to positioning and moving the control surfaces of wings that is suitable for use with thin wings. The present invention fulfills this need, and further provides related advantages.